Weather data may be captured and analyzed by high level satellites and also more locally by more personalized devices. For example, a personal weather station is a set of weather measuring instruments operated by a private individual, club, association, or even business. The quality and number of instruments can vary widely, and the placement of the instruments is important to obtaining accurate, meaningful, and comparable data, can also be very variable.
Today's personal weather stations typically include a digital console that provides readouts of the data being collected. These consoles may interface to a personal computer where data can be displayed, stored, and uploaded to Web sites or other third party systems.
Weather conditions including wind, hail, tornados, snowstorms, and hurricanes result in billions of dollars of losses each year. Insurance can provide for protection for many of these weather conditions and insurance companies generally have many procedures for handling these tragic events. Changing climate conditions are predicted to increase the severity of certain natural weather losses across various geographic regions in the future. Approximately three out of every five insurance claims for damage are caused by wind and hail, while efficient, accurate and timely notification of these conditions has not been readily available.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a system that could provide consumers with real time, accurate and timely warning data to enable proactive protective measures thereby resulting in lower damage rates.